Confession time: If you told me when the draw was made, that Celtic would progress and Chelsea wouldn't, I'd have laughed and called you crazy.

As a Celtic fan, I probably would have done the same. The penalty was really really soft and I felt like they (celtic) were diving quite a bit from the start, but maybe that was because I was watching the match with a Rangers fan :P Not exactly the same intensity I've witnessed in other matches, hopefully it's just fatigue but they're not doing that fantastically well in the SPL either so not sure if they really should be this fatigued just from the addition of European matches.

Typical Celtic though, leaving it to the last match and still not entirely within their control with benfica being able to throw a spanner in the works. Was half expecting Celtic to score the winning goal in the dying seconds of the game just to keep the suspense going lol.

I wouldn't worry too much about the SPL, we all know that Lennon has put much more "effort" (can't think of the right word to use so that'll do for now) into Europe as opposed to the SPL knowing that really, he's got little to no reason to panic in the SPL. He knows that over the next 4 weeks they will have what, 6 games & in the time between tonight & their next European tie will likely have 10 games or so, during which time he'll go unbeaten as he doesn't need to "rest" players for the ties he gives a shit about. As things have stood during European weeks Lennon's been resting 4-5 guys from the starting lineup either totally OR giving them the half day by having them on the bench, combined with them having an eye on midweek as opposed to the "easy" games it's stung Celtic so far - that's not going to happen for the next few weeks.

That's just how I see things from an outsider perspective, when I've seen all these fuds pretending to be such great Celtic supporters absolutely slating Lennon all I've done is laugh because only a fucking idiot would not see that he's concentrating on Europe knowing that's going to be the thing that will make or break Celtic. Ultimately he knows the SPL isn't making jack shit in terms of money, his shareholders don't give a flying fuck about dropping points in the league as that doesn't lose them money - getting a result in the CL is where Celtic will make most money from this season, to put it into context, £900k for finishing second last year (it WILL be less this year) where the following happens in the CL: Draw £325k, Win £650k, qualify £2.4m. Now I'm probably a little cynical, but when you're servicing debt in a league with the revenue potential of the SPL you're not giving a toss about a loss against St. Johnstone when you've just bagged £650k by beating Barcelona - at Celtic are servicing debt, so they need to make money where they can.

Nice fact, the Chelsea game wrote 2 records into the recordbooks, the first one already mentioned, them being the first European Champions to be knocked out in the group stages, but the second record is by the Dutch referee Bas Nijhuis: 3 penalties in the space of 6 minutes. I'm annoyed I watched the rather boring United match and didn't watch the Chelsea score-fest + record making match now

If one more penalty had been given it'd be the most penalties in a single ECL game.

I actually enjoyed the United match, it was good to see certain people (Note Wooton, Buttner and especially Powell) play. Hoping Cleverley's injury isn't serious, and that he was off more for precautionary measures.

However I'm going to sound harsh here, while he is unquestionably a Premiership quality player, Wellbeck is not a Manchester United quality striker.

I think I might put some money on Juve to win it all just for giggles, they are a bit of a dark horse. They got a strong team without really having any "stars"(Buffon ok, he's a star lol), underated team imo. Kind of like Italy in the Euros.

Pirlo is godlike to(when he's good).

Last edited by Jackmoves; 2012-12-06 at 01:23 AM.

The nerve is called the "nerve of awareness". You cant dissect it. Its a current that runs up the center of your spine. I dont know if any of you have sat down, crossed your legs, smoked DMT, and watch what happens... but what happens to me is this big thing goes RRRRRRRRRAAAAAWWW! up my spine and flashes in my brain... well apparently thats whats going to happen if I do this stuff...

Clattenburg has refereed since yes, got a standing ovation at his first match back, punishment on the other hand is a bit lax considering the gravity of his actions!

In other news, prepare for the clusterfuck that will be Euro 2020 which will be held across multiple countries in multiple cities - logistics fucking nightmare & purely a stunt so Platini can say "oh well we brought it to..." and mention a bunch of smaller footballing nations but I can't imagine there will be very many people happy about it, at best he should have stuck to having 2-3 hosts. For example the Celtic nations, Scandinavian nations as opposed to this, atleast then there would be some prestige because at this point in time, it just looks like "fuck it, Italy, Spain, Germany & France didn't want it so here you sort it out".

In other news, prepare for the clusterfuck that will be Euro 2020 which will be held across multiple countries in multiple cities - logistics fucking nightmare & purely a stunt so Platini can say "oh well we brought it to..." and mention a bunch of smaller footballing nations but I can't imagine there will be very many people happy about it, at best he should have stuck to having 2-3 hosts. For example the Celtic nations, Scandinavian nations as opposed to this, atleast then there would be some prestige because at this point in time, it just looks like "fuck it, Italy, Spain, Germany & France didn't want it so here you sort it out".

Turkey could have gotten it. This is really a useless idea. Will disurupt preparations for the teams to.
Only good thing about it is that it will get cheaper I guess, costs quite a lot to host it with all the infrastructure needed etc, just hosting a game or two doesn't cost all that much.

The nerve is called the "nerve of awareness". You cant dissect it. Its a current that runs up the center of your spine. I dont know if any of you have sat down, crossed your legs, smoked DMT, and watch what happens... but what happens to me is this big thing goes RRRRRRRRRAAAAAWWW! up my spine and flashes in my brain... well apparently thats whats going to happen if I do this stuff...

I have my doubts that it will work given the necessary infrastructure to hold that sort of thing, you're going to need at bare minimum 8 cities for the group stages and ultimately you could have a situation where you could be playing 3 games in 3 countries over 8 days - that's insane! I look forward to seeing the proposals that's for sure but I strongly doubt that it will work in practice!

Besides that, what cities are we talking about here, I mean you gotta think there are some places which are out of the running based on recent hosting, for example Poland, Ukraine & France definately out potentially as far back as Austria, Switzerland & Portugal! I can speculate as to where they're going to play matches, but to be honest a number of them either declined to bid for 2020 (Netherlands, Germany for example) OR didn't win it (Turkey, Celtic nations, former Yugoslavian states) - it's destined to be a mess and Platini is off his fuckin rocker even considering it!

I think it'll be interesting to see how they handle it. They've stated how they might use countries that are close together for group matches, so you might have for example one group be based in England/Wales/Scotland.

As for Mikel, the panel have stated they understood the player believed he had been racially abused, had he not, the charge would be considerably heavier. It's a fair deal.

If the player feels he was racially abused how is him getting banned a fair deal? I thought the whole "Chelsea need a punishment" thing was because Chelsea went public? I dont see how that is Mikels fault. You cant punish players for mishearing stuff during football games (and yeah I apply that to not hearing the whistle, RvP vs Barca being the most obvious example.)

I think a lot of it depends on how you run the groups, they're switching to 24 teams in 2016, logic dictates that you're either going to have to switch to 6 groups of 4 OR switch to 4 groups of 6 if you want winner & runner up going through to the quarters. But what I would suggest is that you're probably going to look at UEFA picking 8 "super stadia" for the finals stages (think capacity of around 60-80k) along with 8/12 "big stadia" (40-50k) for the group matches, even taking out hosts as far back as 20 years - which I'd argue would be reasonable - you could do that easily. You could pair up well for the group stages, for example Gp. 1 plays either at Hampden or Croke Park and you'd also need to look at atleast a few countries providing both a finals venue and a group venue (say Wembley & Old Trafford for instance), would appease the "big guns" (England, Germany, Italy, Spain would all be candidates to do this).

Having the "big guns" hold 2 stadia also throws another interesting idea into the mix - give them automatic qualification and you essentially take 4 major names out of the qualifying pot giving "smaller nations" a better shot at qualifying, sounds crazy, but if you take Germany, Spain, Italy & England out of the mix in qualifying you're left with a whole different outlook on qualification. That would in essence leave Portugal, Holland, France in there as the "big names" in qualifying - think of the impact that could potentially have on say a Wales or a Scotland knowing that instead of maybe having a group with Spain & France in qualifying they could have a significantly easier qualification group without a traditionally "major" opponent. You essentially need to think that they'll have 6 "automatic" qualifiers (5 + the winner) so having multiple host city countries would offer them that route.

Still think it'll be a clusterfuck - but given what I've just written it does kinda make sense because I can definately think of 8 stadia for the "premium" matches and can think of a dozen more for group matches without much hassle.

---------- Post added 2012-12-06 at 09:05 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Xanjori

If the player feels he was racially abused how is him getting banned a fair deal? I thought the whole "Chelsea need a punishment" thing was because Chelsea went public? I dont see how that is Mikels fault. You cant punish players for mishearing stuff during football games (and yeah I apply that to not hearing the whistle, RvP vs Barca being the most obvious example.)

Even if he was racially abused that doesn't excuse threatening to beat the referee up which is essentially what he's been punished for - his punishment was reduced because the player genuinely believed he was racially abused and thus had a mitigating reason for his actions.

If the player feels he was racially abused how is him getting banned a fair deal? I thought the whole "Chelsea need a punishment" thing was because Chelsea went public? I dont see how that is Mikels fault. You cant punish players for mishearing stuff during football games (and yeah I apply that to not hearing the whistle, RvP vs Barca being the most obvious example.)

Because whether you believe something or not, barging into the referee's room, hurling abuse and threatening him with physical violence is not the way to handle it.

OK, not like I was expecting a thrashing coming off the last half dozen games, but cementing our position as a solid mid-table team is definitely nice I mean, we are only 5 points off the European Cup (or whatever the hell it is called nowadays).